


The Brink Of Emptiness

by dearjoanwallace



Category: Red Hot Chili Peppers (Band)
Genre: Based on a True Story, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-10
Updated: 2017-04-10
Packaged: 2018-10-17 08:53:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10590609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dearjoanwallace/pseuds/dearjoanwallace
Summary: Flea visits a friend on the brink of emptiness.





	

**Author's Note:**

> The Brink Of Emptiness
> 
> by Kellyanne Lynch  
> 3 May 2001, 10:30 PM - 4 May 2001, 1:40 AM
> 
> Disclaimer: This story is based on real events. My two main sources are a local Los Angeles paper from November, 1996, and the VH1 Behind the Music special on The Red Hot Chili Peppers. I do not know the Chili Peppers, but I feel for them, for the hardships that they have had to face in their lives. The television program and the article have made me think about all that has happened to them and inspired this fanfic. This is for everybody who loves the Chili Peppers.
> 
> Summary: Flea visits a friend on the brink of emptiness.
> 
> Rating: PG-13
> 
> Please e-mail dearjoan@mikeypower.com with questions, comments, theories, complaints, or words of wisdom.

Flea sat back in his seat. Tapping on his steering wheel, he stared at a luxurious Hollywood Hills home. The sun sparkled off white marble steps. Beautiful ivory columbs stretched skyward, framing the double-doored entrance to the mansion.

Birds chirped. Children laughed in the distance. A breeze caressed Flea's tensioned shoulders, tickling his ears. And he sighed. He did not want to enter that house.

Rubbing his eyes, he prayed, "Please, God, let it be different this time." He grabbed the brown paper bag beside him and got out of the car.

As he ascended the front steps, Flea glanced over his shoulder. Folks were out on midday strolls, walking their dogs and their children. Each set of individuals meandered about in their own little worlds. They might have glanced at this house, at its splendor, and wonder who could own such a palace. But nobody knew about the man inside. Even if they learned that man was dying, slowly and in agony, they wouldn't care.

Flea shook his head and rapped his knuckles on the door to his right. The effects from his car's AC were wearing off; his golden curls tightened and writhed in the midday glare of the sun. Perspiration speckled his upper lip and saturated the underarms of his white cotton tank top.

"Come on, man!" he muttered and knocked again.

"It's open," rasped a voice from inside. 'Open?!' Flea turned the knob and pushed. The door glided open.

Scents assaulted his olfactory as Flea stepped into the house. He smelled the circus, the zoo, a chicken coop. It was like stepping into a giant litter box. A pair of jeans hung off the railing of a staircase. Jewel cases scattered the floor, some open, some with CDs spilling out. A heap of clothes sat by the stairs. A stack of mail on a chair. Flea stepped forward, and his foot sunk into a green-tinted pizza. Cringing, he raised his foot from the pizza box and wiped it on a flyer just a step away.

A trail of clothes and trash led Flea to the entryway of the living room. He caught sight of a print of DaVinci's 'Mona Lisa'. She smiled out at the crux of the house's whirlwind, a dingy red couch in the midst of more garbage. Draped across the couch was the skeleton of a man, whose pasty skin barely stretched across the bones. His eyes seemed to bug out from their sockets and stare... just stare. The gray flannel shirt wrapped about his torso hung off his body, holding on solely by three buttons across his rib cage. Fuzz and stains clung to the shirt and to his khaki pants, peppered with cigarette ashes and with burnt holes.

Long, gnarly fingers clung to the neck of an acoustic guitar, its blackened bloody nails resting against the frets. They played across the strings before swiping through the owner's greasy shocks of black hair. They caught on a tangle.

"Damn," the skeleton's drool-infested lips croaked, tearing his fingers from his head. A clump of knotted hair came with it. He flicked them to the side, still staring... staring.

Flea's eyes watered, and he clenched them shut. Then opened them again.

"John?"

Glazed eyes shifted onto Flea, still seemingly staring into nothingness. Focussing, recognition flashed momentarily across them. Then stared through him.

"Yeah," John's voice scraped through his throat. "I'm here. Here in a sense, gone in a sense. Senses don't make sense. But when did anything?"

His left hand slapped down on the scratched coffee table beside him, and Flea jumped. The hand scanned the surface of the table, unaided by sight, and slipped over a pack of unfiltered Camel cigarettes. Joints bending, the bones and tendons wrapped around the box and drew them to the pit beneath John's rib cage. He pulled out a cigarette, lit it, and threw the box back to the table.

Drawing the cigarette to his lips, he inhaled a third of it in one puff. Ashes rained over him, a glowing ember embedding itself into John's left forearm. John took another drag.

"Sh**!" Flea brushed his hand across the ember, which sunk into the carpet. He sighed and sat on the coffee table. Closing his eyes, he rubbed the bridge of his nose. "John, are you ever going to get off this couch?"

John exhaled a puff of smoke. "Nothing to do. Nothing to do but run the maze, play the game, run in circles until you're blue in the face, and red, and..." his eyes focussed upon the bag in Flea's lap. Fragile, brown teeth peeked out from behind his drooping lower lip. "Did you bring me a gun?"

Flea furrowed his eyebrows, subconsciously clutching the bag tighter. "Why would I do that?"

"'Cause I'm needing a gun. I'm needing a gun like this world needs to go down in a big flaming, glowing, yellow destruction."

Flea held back tears, knowing that they wouldn't help anything. But he had no idea what WOULD help, what he could say or do to get John out of this place. He gulped.

"I didn't bring you a gun," he breathed, reaching into the bag. He puled out a six-pack of Boost and set it on the table. The cans clunked against the wooden surface. "I brought you these drinks."

"Why?" John gave him a hollow stare.

Flea bit his upper lip and tasted salt. Closing his eyes, he asked, "When's the last time you ate anything?"

"Does it matter?" John flicked ash onto his chest, and Flea swept it away. "Does anything? What are we doing?" John dug the tip of his cigarette into his forearm.

"F***!" Flea snatched the cigarette from the feeble fingers that held it. He pressed it into an ashtray on the table. "'the hell were you doing?"

"Doing things there's no reason to do," John scratched his protruding neck veins. "I don't know. I don't feel."

Flea swallowed hard. "Can you just drink these?" He gestured toward the Boost.

"I'll try. Though trying's not worth the effort."

Sighing, Flea reached into the bag again. He lay a jewel-cased CD on the table. A little red-headed girl smiled from the cover. "I didn't know if you would want this, but it's our latest CD..."

" 'Our'?"

"The Chili Peppers'."

Light in the room intensified, and Flea looked toward the window facing west. The sun was making its daily descent, passing by the side of John's house as it passed. Its rays flickered off the jewel case, off the covers of other jewel cases, a glass on the floor, the metal zipper of a pair of Levi's, the boom box by John's dangling hand...

A needle half under the couch.

"Why don't you go on home," John rasped as his hand reached for his cigarettes. "I'll drink to life and all, but I want to be alone."

Flea's eyes were still on the needle. What could he do? John's mind was set on opening doors for himself while keeping everyone else locked out of his life.

"You know you can call me whenever you want," Flea reminded his friend. "Even when I'm on tour, you have my cell phone number. I'm always just a plane ride away."

It was all he could do. And he hated it. He hated himself for it, and he hated John for bringing it to this.

John nodded, dark oily locks dripping over his face. Flea watched him draw the cigarette to his lips. And inhale its toxic innards.

Dropping to his knees, Flea flung his arms around his friend. He felt the bones in John's chest imprint themselves into his forehead. He held him tight, receiving nothing in return. No embrace, no pat on the shoulder, no movement. Flea was hugging a skeleton of a man wanting to leave his body. Still, Flea held on, until his triceps ached. Then he stood and admitted himself out of the house. All he could do at this point was pray, always feeling that he could never do enough.

Flea would hold out his hand as long as John was down or high or wherever he was. But John would have to reach for that hand. He would have to care about life again.

\--------------------------------

"My friends are so depressed  
I feel the question  
Of your loneliness  
Confide... 'cause I'll be on your side  
You know I will, you know I will"

\- The Red Hot Chili Peppers, "My Friends"


End file.
